Latest ESA Stories
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express has offered up a high-resolution photo of a river-like structure on Mars. The spacecraft used its high-resolution stereo camera last year to snap an image of Reull Vallis on the Red Planet. Reull Vallis is a river-like structure believed to have formed when running water flowed in the distant martian past. The ancient river bed cuts a steep-sided channel through the Promethei Terra...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency (ESA) signed an agreement with NASA this week to contribute to the Orion spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch in 2017. Orion's ultimate mission will be to carry astronauts farther into space than ever before. This will be achieved using a module based on Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) technology. Since 2008, ATVs have been resupplying the International Space Station (ISS). ATV Albert Einstein,...
ESA [ WATCH THE VIDEO "Lessons From Mars" ] When humans eventually travel to the Red Planet, the voyage will be long and difficult. The simulated Mars500 mission showed that every detail must be planned, including diet and sleep. The findings will also benefit those of us who stay behind. Mars500 locked six ‘marsonauts’ in a simulated spaceship near Moscow, Russia for 520 days, the time it would take to fly to Mars and back plus 30 days spent exploring its surface. During their...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online One mission aims to take a Bruce Willis approach in the movie Armageddon, by deflecting any future asteroids that might be headed towards Earth. The European Space Agency is looking for research ideas to help guide the development of an asteroid deflection mission study. ESA is asking for concepts based on both ground- and space-based investigations that could improve the understanding of the physics of very high-speed collisions...
ESA Migrating birds fly as long as it takes to get to their destination, no matter what obstacles are in their way. When that obstacle is an aircraft, the results can be deadly. According to the US Federal Aviation Administration, bird strikes have killed more than 231 people and destroyed over 220 aircraft worldwide since 1988. Satellites are helping to change this deadly scene. In 2007, ESA began the FlySafe project in partnership with the Dutch, Belgian, French and German Air...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The European Space Agency's (ESA) Proba-V microsatellite is going through some testing to ensure it is fully ready to start charting global vegetation every two days. The microsatellite will be launched in April, after which it will be flying a miniaturized version of the Vegetation sensor on France's full-sized Spot-5 satellite. Proba-V is being tested at a specialized Interspace facility in Toulouse, France, undergoing rigorous...
[ Watch the Video: The Huygens Experience ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Eight years ago today, Huygens became the first probe to touch down on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. Huygens was first released from the international Cassini spacecraft on Christmas Day 2004, and it arrived at Titan three weeks later. Cassini has been orbiting around Saturn since July 2004, and the spacecraft will continue its operations until 2017. ESA released an animation...
ESA ESA’s Herschel space observatory made new observations of asteroid Apophis as it approached Earth this weekend. The data shows the asteroid to be bigger than first estimated, and less reflective. Catalogued as asteroid (99942) Apophis (previously 2004 MN4), it is often nicknamed ‘the doomsday asteroid’ in popular media, after initial observations made after its discovery in 2004 gave it a 2.7% chance of striking Earth in April 2029. With additional data, however, an impact...
WASHINGTON, Jan. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Astronomers have discovered what appears to be a large asteroid belt around the star Vega, the second brightest star in northern night skies. The scientists used data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel Space Observatory, in which NASA plays an important role. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The discovery of an asteroid belt-like band of debris around...
ESA Just like home computers, the sophisticated capabilities of today’s space missions are made possible by the power of their processor chips. ESA’s coming Alphasat telecom satellite, the Proba-V microsatellite, the Earth-monitoring Sentinel family and the BepiColombo mission to Mercury are among the first missions to use an advanced 32-bit microprocessor – engineered and built in Europe. All of them incorporate the new LEON2-FT chip, commercially known as the AT697. Engineered...
Latest ESA Reference Libraries
Roberto Vittori is an ESA astronaut as well as an Italian Air Force Officer and a test pilot for the United States. Vittorri was born on October 15, 1964 in Viterbo, Lazio, Italy and attended the Italian Air Force Academy, graduating in 1989. While working towards his graduation from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland in 1995, Vittori operated the Tornado GR1 along with the 50th Wing of the 155th Squadron in Piacenza, Italy from 1991 to 1994. During this time, he...
Léopold Eyharts is a Brigadier General in the French Air Force and an ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut. Eyharts was born April 28, 1957, in Biarritz, France. After completing his basic academics, he joined the French Air Force Academy of Salon-de-Provence in 1977 to study aeronautical engineering. Eyharts graduated in 1979 as an engineer. By 1980 he became a fighter pilot and was sent to the Istres Air Force Base in France. Initially he was assigned to an operational jaguar squadron...
Jean-Francois Clervoy is a French engineer and test pilot, a CNES and ESA astronaut, and a veteran of three NASA Space Shuttle missions. He was born Jean-Francois André Clervoy on November 19, 1958 in France. He has a twin brother, Patrick, and is married to the former Laurence Boulanger. The couple has two children, and the family enjoys racquet sports, skill games, skiing, and flying kites. Clervoy graduated from high school in Saint-Cyr Lycee and then earned his Bachelor's degree from...
Chister Fuglesang is a Swedish physicist and an ESA astronaut. He was born Arne Christer Fuglesang on March 18, 1957 in Stockholm, Sweden. His mother was Swedish, but his father was Norwegian, having become a Swedish citizen just before Fuglesang's birth. Fuglesang graduated college, and went on to receive a Master of Science degree in engineering physics from the Royal Institute of Technology in 1981. While at the Royal Institute, he met Elisabeth, whom he married in 1983. He then earned a...
